Inspired Workplace

Regardless of where you stand on the issue of Komen’s funding of Planned Parenthood, rarely do we get such a public example of a personal agenda being pushed to the detriment of the organization, which is why it’s our topic for discussion today.

When I first got my Saint Bernard, Ponca, the biggest behavioral challenge we had was that she beat the other two dogs up. Bloodfang and Knight, the existing members of Team Dog, didn’t understand her boundaries and rules because their rules were different. One rule on Team Dog was that water is an infinite, shared resource because Alpha Dog kept them fully supplied.

Update: Col. McCraw from DPS did respond to my email. The short version is that the mental and physical demands tend to weed out a portion of the new hires, and they are studying other reasons why trainees leave in the first year.

I was watching a news story the other night about Texas DPS. Seems that 21% of their trainees are leaving DPS, and one of the reasons cited was that the pay isn’t competitive.

Powerpoint doesn’t kill brain cells…. people kill brain cells. Much like a gun and its ability to harm, Powerpoint provides a very effective method for making people stupid.

Here’s why – it provides the means and mechanism for dumping (some might call it vomiting) lists of facts (bullet points) all over the audience. This is not an effective way of disseminating information or learning. First and foremost, it’s boring. Boredom shuts down the brain. And, real learning requires involvement in the experience. Which means that it requires an experience.

I love this short video by Dan Pink about what motivates us. As someone who’s mission is to create inspired workplaces, I think this says a lot about why traditional forms of performance management don’t work.

I attended that Dallas Drucker Society meeting last night, and one of the participants was talking about hiring a CFO. She mentioned that she wouldn’t even consider a candidate if money were an issue. She wants people who believe that if they do a good job the money will follow. In uninspired workplaces, that’s simply not true. They think they got a bargain.

This morning I was attending the Young Women Executives Forum at the Tower Club, and today’s topic was Conflict Management. This is a topic that I hit with my coaching clients 100% of the time.

We all have a default mode for dealing with conflict. Some people use the “my way or the highway” approach. Others are passive-aggressive. Others stuff their point of view down like a philly cheesesteak, and what comes back up when they get a overstuffed ain’t pretty.

Last week, I was reading an article on Gallup about how President and CEO Douglas R. Conant’s plan to revitalize Campbell’s Soup included a decade-long effort to improve employee engagement. To give you some background, Conent took over at Cambell’s about 9 years ago. Things weren’t going well. Campbell’s had one of the lowest engagement scores of any Fortune 500 ever.

Photo by Nur Hussein - find the pic on Flickr, the story is hilarious!

We hear a lot about being results-focused and results-driven. Results are important, and somewhere along the way, we’ve lost sight of the importance of the journey.

Case and point. In 1959, Cuba had an illiteracy rate of 23%. Post Castro revolution, in 1961, it was reduced to 4%. Let’s just say, this wasn’t the kindest of processes, and yet, if the focus was on the result to wipe out illiteracy, they were astoundingly successful.

We’re all busy. And, being busy in our culture can be a badge of honor. Busy = Important.

“Busy” is also where Managewhiches get tripped up.

Case Study 1:
Jennifer was on the receiving end of some “unpleasant” news. Her company was cutting back on hours for its hourly employees and reorganizing some of its work, and everyone was informed that “changes were coming” via mass email. Jennifer’s hours were cut in half (as she discovered by looking in the system for her schedule) and some of her duties were reassigned (as she discovered in an unfortunate incident when she showed up to work and someone else was doing her job).